By Andre Bell

De Sa says his side were too relaxed in closing stages of quarter-final against Celtic

Orlando Pirates coach Roger de Sa felt his team lacked the necessary professionalism to sew up their cup tie at the weekend and paid the ultimate price for a level of arrogance.

The Orlando Pirates coach, reflecting on his club’s defeat at the hands of Bloemfontein Celtic on Sunday, said it was a hard lesson for the team to learn.

“Obviously I’m very disappointed because I felt we had done enough at 3-1 up. It felt like we were in control but we lost our heads a bit. We should have wrapped it up with the chances we had.

“It’s a little bit similar to what happened to us when we came out here for the league (in late September) we got chances which we never took. Today it was the same thing.

“Complacency, a little too relax, maybe a little lack of professionalism at the time is what cost us,” added De Sa.

“We should have made it 4-1 but even when we missed those chances we always felt we were in control of the game.

“But Celtic fought back and showed character and some of our players didn’t. That’s the way it goes.”

The result meant Pirates have now gone seven games away at Celtic without success.

“We knew we hadn’t beaten them in the last four years is always going to be a challenge but I felt we were up to it. We were confident and obviously at 3-1 up I thought we’d turned that record over. But you saw what happened and now we can only try and get them next time.”